


Crosshairs

by blackice



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Thane gets to have a family life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5522510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackice/pseuds/blackice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It makes complete sense for a drell to be sent back in time, if one dwells on the thought long enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crosshairs

**Author's Note:**

> I've actually had this in my drive for a couple months; I just got around to messing and editing it.

Witnessed by the two beings in the galaxy he cared for the most, Thane’s passing could be considered far too luxurious for a man of his occupation. No breathing apparatus attached to his person, no life-support machines beeping beside him; only the slow innate reminder of his failing body exists. It is a good death, in his opinion—the easiest an assassin can hope to attain. 

Thus when Thane comes to in a young body balancing precariously on a pillar set in the midst of an ocean, he loses his hard-won composure for the briefest of seconds. Floundering at the jarring sensation of displacement ( _he didn’t realize he used to be so short_ ), Thane falls off the pillar.

Reflexes enable him to snag the top of the pillar and pull himself back up despite the crushing deluge on Kahje. He stares out at the expanse of choppy waves, rainwater pelting down against his bare scales, and Thane finally recalls his purpose in being outside: meditating. He’s supposed to be meditating.  Muscle memory blindly guides his limbs back into a more rigid semblance of the meditation pose.

He breathes without obstruction for the first time in years.

+

Thane arrives at a swift conclusion the same day he is slotted back into his twelve year old self: time has been manipulated. This, or he has been rudely deposited into a new universe. Science disproves the very thought of either (time travel or parallel universes), but Thane’s never placed too much faith in the subject. Three doctors, three differing diagnoses, three contradicting estimates of his lifespan; life prevails in the fight of knowledge.

The conclusion does not make him giddy, nor does it make him morose—rather it gives him the slightest offering of hope. Evidently some events cannot be avoided; post-meditation, Thane receives orders to perform his first assassination. Reviewing his memories, the only difference is his handler’s hesitant question of his meditation (to which he’d given a sufficient answer).

His awareness of time travel includes the consequences of manipulating key events—some events should not be altered. Thane knows of how Mindoir shaped Shepard’s psychology and how Akuze encouraged her leadership potential; it would be cruel of him to deny her those experiences. But it is, in a more objective view, selfish of him to desire his siha as she had been.

He does not know what to do about Irikah.

+

It makes complete sense for a drell to be sent back in time, if one dwells on the thought long enough. For drell retain complete eidetic memories, which serve as both motivator ( _burning Citadel, ash, screams, gunfire, pain in the chest_ ) and milestone. Thane is careful to keep his career identical to his past life (and the battle-sleep far from his mind).

Even if the motions become routine, he is all too aware of where his path hurtles toward. When the killing grows too wearisome and feelings become too jaded, Thane remembers the money from the job is being deposited into a trust fund for a nonexistent son. It is developing into quite the nest egg.

If his contracts ever lead him to a terminal where he can track his old team’s lives, well, his handler cannot argue when Thane flawlessly delivers kill after kill.

… It does strike Thane how young his team had been compared to him (sans the mercenary and Samara), in terms of lifestyle if not age. The Vakarians are more focused on keeping Citadel security than having a family, Cerberus is still an infant organization (and one, he loathes, that must be intact for his future’s integrity) without any ideas of brainwashing children into an army, and—and Shepard is yet to be conceived.

+

It’s a good day to kill an old salarian. Thane reflexively turns back to his memories to ensure all is right—the date, his position, the war criminal’s position. He raises the barrel of his sniper rifle and flicks on the targeting laser, settling the red dot at the back of the salarian’s head. Of course, there’s never a good reason to turn on a targeting laser, not when one’s trying for a discreet assassination.

But Thane, before he’d been broken of the battle-sleep? As Shepard had succinctly put it, he’d been trigger-happy. Eager for conflict, excitement, or any retaliation the old salarian might give.

A long second passes. Thane hesitates, hands going unsteady for the first time in years.

 _What if she doesn’t come_?

The laser accidentally wavers from the salarian’s skull to a decidedly _less_ fatal spot, but before he can correct this mistake— _Sunset-colored eyes through the scope. A mouth shaping the scream, ‘How dare you?’_

He falls in love all over again.

+

Thane refrains from pursuing Irikah as intensely as he did before. He already knows her, as a friend and as a husband, and thus his instinct to behave as if she is a target—tail to most frequented locations ( _the markets_ ), research daily routines ( _drinks tea as religiously as Shepard drank coffee, takes brisk walks in the morning and late evening_ ), etcetera—is stifled.

If he’s more brutal about stopping her assailants during her work at the labs, it can all be attributed to being angry about Irikah’s lack of guards. Rather, the _laboratory’s_ lack of guards.

It is still a rocky first ( _second_? he fled the first time) meeting, more so when he confesses the romantic notion about wanting to be saved. At least Irikah is still game to try.

+

Over a mug of tea he brewed for her, Irikah asks, “Have you ever wanted to make your own way in life?” It is one of his and Irikah’s many dates preluding to their marriage, though not the same one she’d sprung the question last time around. In fact, it is far earlier.

He mulls over the difference, wonders if he has shown his hand too early, and considers all that is ahead of him. “Yes,” Thane answers candidly. “But I’ve never tried my hand at anything beyond killing, so what pleasure is there to be found in independence?”

Irikah’s smiles come in many forms; this one is sympathy masked in humor, a quirk of lips to the side. “I wasn’t demanding you be a dockworker, Thane.”

“I can’t farm either, if that’s what you intend on saying next,” he says, relishing the sound of her laugh.

He stays in the Compact’s demands long enough for Kolyat’s trust fund to contain a healthy amount of credits, then Thane follows history, asking for his release and his handler’s blessing.  History obeys his memories.

+

Marriage and freedom still remain the most unpredictable elements; their tendency to disrupt the most routine of days make Thane feels both elated and uncertain. He tells Irikah he won’t—can’t—give up his work as an assassin, and instead of protesting the matter, Irikah asks if he’s confident enough to keep his identity safe. 

“You don’t even wear a helmet,” she chides gently, nudging the crown of his head with a closed fist. “And you _are_ very recognizable.”

He grins at her, because he’s young and in love and extremely confident now he’s armed with future knowledge. “I’m very recognizable, dear?” Irikah pokes at his chest, a mock-firm expression on her face, and Thane concedes, “ _Aesthetically_ , I’m recognizable. But I don’t get sloppy on the job.”

“Excusing the one time with the salarian, of course.”

“Of course.”

The conversation is the unsettling reminder of a future he does not want to recreate, and another incentive to change the future comes in the form of Kolyat (he argues long and hard for the name until Irikah bemusedly points out she would have suggested it anyway).

Kolyat and their marriage are separated by several years, due to Irikah’s concern about the two of them possibly being terrible parents. Most of her day is consumed by the work in the laboratory, and if Thane was determined to continue freelancing his skills as an assassin, any children conceived would be left alone in the house too often.

After Thane proves he’s able to stick to keeping jobs within a week’s cycle. Irikah relents and says, “Alright, fine.”

Kolyat bats at Thane’s impassive face and coos nonsense. Without hesitation, Thane waves a hand in front of his son’s face and lets a shower of harmless biotic sparks fall.

“You spoil him,” jests Irikah.

 “I take every day with my family as a gift,” he responds, flicking some of the sparks at his wife.

“Flatterer.”

Both of them are quite adamant about keeping their children out of the Compact; Irikah never enjoyed the feeling of being indebted, and Thane knows his reputation would cause the hanar to groom Kolyat as his successor.

+

Before Kolyat is seven, Thane bids a temporary farewell and undergoes a month-long trip to wipe out Stiv Kay and the ring of batarian slavers. They are clean kills as opposed to the brutality of his past life; Thane isn’t justified in those actions here. When he returns home, though, Irikah takes one look at his impassive face and uncovers his journey’s purpose.

“Was it necessary?” she asks.

Thane looks at the ceiling to stall for time. “It was a precautionary measure.”

Their son accidentally bursts into the room in his failed effort to eavesdrop, and to be fair, Thane only startles a little at the sudden break in tension.  

Life passes. Thane watches his family with one careful eye. Irikah never loses her charitable spirit or devotion to keeping their family knitted together, and Kolyat (with no interference from him, he swears) pursues an apprenticeship to the priests still following the old religion.

He supposes it is fortunate Kolyat had not inherited his biotic abilities.

With his other eye, he tracks his team as they are born and as they grow. Shepard, not a survivor of the doomed Mindoir colony, but a daughter of two high-ranking Alliance parents. Vakarian, Zorah, Goto—all have the same lives.

Thane wonders if his saving one siha has erased the birth of another.

Years later, when he sees Shepard’s name publically announced as one of Earth’s heroes of the Skyllian Blitz and then as one of the Alliance’s few N7s, he is inordinately proud she is still capable of heroic feats.

+

Thane contracts Kepral’s a few months after Shepard’s death (he knows it silly to mourn for a woman he hasn’t even met yet, one that will be most assuredly revived by a now galactic-wide Cerberus), more than half a year after the Battle of the Citadel.

He hides it from his family and plays the intermittent spasms of coughing as ‘dust in the lungs’. Despite this, Kolyat’s too-wise eyes catch him in the lie. At his behest to ‘stop keeping secrets’, Thane pulls his son aside to teach him of his career as an assassin, omitting any mention of Kepral’s and instead painting a vivid past of his travels as a distraction.

But, of course, Irikah guilts him into confession (she and Shepard have always been scarily good at that). Thane had been firm in dividing his past from his present, so why the change?

The only punishment is to his dignity.

+

A legend blooms into life on Omega and dies the next, and Thane keeps his eyes out for a contract to Illium. When his underground contacts start speaking of a red-headed whirlwind of death and an assassination contract concerning Nassana appears on his feed, Thane gathers his family together for a hasty goodbye.

 _Review, record, reevaluate_.

Kolyat is buried in his books, hardly interested in tracing his father’s footsteps to the Citadel. And Irikah—

She draws him outside and closes the door to their children’s outraged expressions at being shut out. “What’s happening?” she murmurs, her sunset-colored eyes searching. “I’ve never seen you so nervous, not since your aim mysteriously wavered the first time we met, not since Kolyat was born.”

“It is nothing,” he mutters, fingers staying loose and uncurled. “The contract is sound, and my identity is safe—”

“There’s something more.”

Thane stops himself from fisting his hands, from straightening his back, from acting guilty. “There is,” he allows, unwilling to lie point-blank to his siha. Marriage is built on trust; he’ll not have his marriage ruined all because he was reluctant to tell her of this one thing. “I’ll be gone for a little while. Longer than my usual contracts.” To be honest—and he must—he isn’t sure if Shepard will accept him on the team this time.

History has been slightly shifted by his proactivity and his refusal to fall back in to battle-sleep. Though he lurked on the Citadel to once more find the Cerberus agent Rasa, he hadn’t seen her.

He wonders what he’ll do if Shepard denies him.

Irikah studies his expression silently, lips pursed, and she finally gives him a faint smile. “Come back alive.”

Graciously, he bows. “As you command, siha.”

+

According to Thane’s memories, Samara’s search for Morinth had coincided with his contract. It had been a rushed thing; Shepard had raced to catch him first, and had subsequently dragged him along to find and employ her justicar.

Samara is not here.

While Thane gathers information in Illium, he does come across one of Shepard’s old teammates. Liara T’soni, whose pale face is pinched with worry for her captive friend, is interested in his appearance before her desk for all of several nanoseconds.

"I don't believe I know you," says the asari absentmindedly, going back to her datapads and notetaking. The haphazard organization of the datapads reminds Thane of Shepard's disastrously worded mission reports lying scattered over her bed and desk, and it aches, the memory of a time long-past. 

"We have a mutual friend," he responds blandly. "I want to make a deal." It is best to be blunt with these information brokers, he's found. Playing their word games is not his forte, even though he can muster both offensive and defensive measures. "If Commander Shepard comes to Nos Astra under the pretense of recruiting, message me, and tell her I will be at Dantius Towers finishing a contract."

He ensures eye contact is made before retreat.

+

**Commander Shepard is interested in recruiting you.**

**I will be at the top floor.**

If he has the timing correct (and he usually does), Thane is giving Shepard the best show an assassin can: one of utmost discretion. Innocents have been sealed into safe-rooms, and many of the dead have been killed with a quick bullet to the head or a snap of the neck. He waits in the vents, anxious (ha, _breathless_ ) to hear anything or anyone following below.

“These shots are gorgeous,” marvels a too-familiar voice. Compared to his first memory, she sounds far more dazzled than taut and angry considering he’s outpacing her the entire way to Nassana. “I want him on the team.” Thane’s heart skips a beat at the declaration.

Lawson’s voice is the hiss of a serpent. “Shepard, have some common sense. He wasn’t included in the dossiers! You shouldn’t be considering him! He’s a rogue element!”

Paralyzed by the possibility his chances to join Shepard—to prevent so many disastrous things from happening—are crippled because he hasn’t a _dossier_ , Thane refrains from finishing the last floor until he hears a response.

“If he talks as well as he walks, he’s coming,” says Shepard firmly. “Just—Garrus! You’re a professional now.”

Dryly, Garrus responds, “I’m glad you’re finally seeing the light, Shepard.”

“You _shot_ me, I’m allowed to hold a grudge for a few weeks. Anyway. You’re a professional. Judge away!”

Since Thane does not need Vakarian’s obligatory compliments as confirmation of his skills, he moves on, a warming feeling curling in his heart.

+

Shepard is—not different. Not at first. Her hair is the same fire-brand red, her eyes the color of glittering green gemstones, and on her back is the familiar sniper rifle. But as Thane tentatively opens their first conversation, he discovers the idiosyncrasies.

She’s the child of a family with a strong military background, so she has a mask of stern professionalism. It looks less forced, when his last Shepard’s view of professional poker faces had always contained an irrepressible spark of wicked humor to it. And there aren’t any freckles specking the bridge of her nose, a result of Mindoir’s sunny days.

Thane reminds himself: _she is not_ your _siha. Honor the past, honor the present_.

“How does an assassin know I’m recruiting for a suicide mission?” she asks him.

“One hears things in the Terminus Systems. You are not as subtle as you believe you are.” He means it as a rebuke, and she takes it as a joke. One corner of her mouth pulls into a wry grin.

“Two-Shot Shepard,” she replies. “Got the nickname when I messed up a clear kill-shot.” Behind her, Garrus rolls his eyes and shifts his weight, ever-so-ready to strike for his Commander. “So you’re willing to join my crew?”

He gives her the rundown: he has zero obligations to fulfill (other than his promise to Irikah, but that is a secret best left alone, especially when Thane fiercely believes in the success of the mission), he is sick with a disease not contagious to others, and this is a good way to spend the last months of his life (if Kepral’s proceeds as it did before, the last years).

Although Lawson’s eyes are narrowed into an ice-shard blue glare at the handshake Thane executes with Shepard, he cannot find it in himself to care.

His first siha is safe and protected, his second revived and accepting of his presence aboard the Normandy.

+

The other major difference in this Shepard lies in the matter of _romance_. She is romantically involved with the turian. Or rather, wants to become romantically involved with the turian.

Thane… is not sure how to process this attraction at first but is agreeable to the development. Jealousy could only ever hamper the mission, and his position as team member is precarious enough that he can be booted off at any sour exchange of words. 

A month passes onboard the SR-2, and Thane discovers himself in the unusual role of playing Shepard’s married best friend.

“I mean, you’re _married_ , and you’ve got _a kid_ ,” says Shepard, hooking her chin atop her folded hands. She’s straddling a chair backwards, with the back of it facing him. “So you know the—the motions, right? Like how to get to first base, second, third, so on and so forth all the way to the moment where you go ‘I love you’?”

“My marriage was preceded by unique circumstances,” he answers delicately. “Circumstances not replicable in your case, Commander.” Thane is careful not to call her siha, but the temptation builds with every self-imposed mission Shepard sets off to complete for the sake of bringing her team together. Injuries sustained under accompanying Grunt on his coming-of-age ritual almost broke the rule, but fortunately, the first syllable of siha is close in sound to Shepard.

“But you know romance,” she persists. “I—I don’t have any idea how to go about any of it.”

“It is a great deal of clumsiness on both sides, romance,” agrees Thane. He encourages her to pursue the turian anyway.

+

They don’t always talk about relationships.

“Your son, what’s he like?” The question is careless and so very Shepard. One of her more morally questionable attributes is her curiosity, which is either a boon or a burden, depending on the circumstances. Thane often found he answered more than he would have cared to whenever Shepard decided a day would be ‘interrogation day’ the past life.

She’s working on a report to Miranda, who will edit the document and later send it to the Illusive Man. Shepard here is more or less intent on hammering out a cohesive and coherent report, unlike the Shepard past. It’s disorienting to see the top of her bowed head and the busy swiping of fingers on a holographic terminal.

He answers in full, because Shepard can detect caginess like a vorcha can smell blood.  “Kolyat, my eldest and only son,” he tries to gather the right words, “he is both his mother and me.”

Shepard glances up, gemstone eyes glittering. “That’s good, though.”

"Not always," he allows. "He’s inherited my sense of self-righteousness and Irikah’s tongue."

"So he verbally beats on his friends?"

It startles a laugh out of him, and she practically radiates smugness at her success. 

+

As the time to pass through the Omega Relay grows ever nearer, Thane keeps tabs on his memories and communication with his family. He’s hoping his son stays in place with his mother on Kahje, far from the Citadel and Zakera Ward.

Kolyat texts him almost daily. _Are you coming home yet_?

 _Classified_ , he sends back. _Help your mother. Find a new hobby_.

The last statement gets him in some minor trouble with Irikah, who irritably sends him pictures of Kolyat undergoing every feasible hobby available on Kahje. It’s a surprisingly large number—Kolyat swiftly becomes a source of panic for him, because he apparently feels best when high on adrenaline. His only consolation relies on the fact Kolyat also has a sense of familial duty, so he won’t actually attempt anything _too_ foolish.

Shepard continues dropping by on her rounds, claiming new developments between her and Garrus or wanting to discuss the cost-benefits of restoring Rakhana for the drell. One day she questions him over his polytheistic pantheon, another day they will have jumped to the topic of which rifle models fit best for their work.

He maintains the purpose of a sniper rifle is to fire a single fatal shot over twelve per body.

Thane formulates a check-list of all he can contribute to the Reaper War before he dies of Kepral's again: sabotage all of Cerberus's operations, assassinate Kai Leng post-Collector Base, and lastly, keep the salarian alive.

Through word of mouth he'd heard how Mordin Solus had died—at Tuchanka, at the Shroud, sacrificing the individual for a million billions—though there hadn't been time to confirm the news with Shepard at his deathbed.

He wonders if he will still die before the War ends.

+

"I need liquid courage," Shepard declares first, "before Garrus brings his equivalent of liquid courage, which could just be the blood of his enemies." She leans against the doorway, hands shoved in pockets. The very picture of casualness (and very _not_ the picture of professionalism). "I've got two minutes before we possibly get it on before we land at the Collector Base. Any advice?"

"You share a mutual affection for each other," answers Thane. "Don't keep quiet, either vocally or motion-wise, a partner likes reassurance." His gaze skitters from her flushed face to the imbalance of her stance. "Are you already inebriated?"

"...  _Yes_ ," confirms the woman. 

Thane rubs at his eyes with the heel of a palm, and then he silently contacts Garrus to pick her up and off to her ( _their_ , that insidious voice of jealousy hisses) quarters. "Take a seat, si—Shepard."

"There you go again," sighs Shepard. "Always messing up my name. Really, what's so difficult about my name?" She squints at him. "Unless you were going to give me a nickname. I love nicknames."

He looks at his hands and flexes his fingers in contemplative silence. "... Siha," he finally admits. "It is a title given to only the highest of warriors." And that is all he has to say about it, only stolidly fronting her lackadaisical questions before Garrus apologetically arrives to sweep his belle away.

+

While Vakarian and Shepard are preoccupied about learning each other pre-Collector Base, Thane emerges from the Life Support room, expression closed-off and stance purposefully rigid. All preparations have been made: this Shepard, much like the last, has spent no small amount of money to ready her new Normandy and team for the ostensibly one-way trip to the Collector Base.

There is technically nothing he can do to boost their survival; everything now hinges on luck, Joker's flying skills, and Shepard's intuition.

Truthfully, he doesn't have to emerge from the room—last life had been to approach Shepard in her quarters, a position now taken over by Vakarian. 

Last life he had been afraid of dying; this life is no different. And in the strange periods where the Normandy is traveling by relay, Thane cannot relate his worries to his family.

His feet take him to one of the observation decks where Samara, perhaps the only being who could empathize with him, sits floating. "Assassin," greets the justicar coolly. 

"Justicar," he returns. Indicating with a small wave, Thane asks, "Would you mind me meditating as well?"

"I hardly own the area."

Less stress-relieving than last life's, but at least Thane is not anxiously awaiting alone.

+

The Illusive Man encourages Shepard to preserve the Collector Base, of course. Thane, having accompanied Shepard and Garrus for the most part (Joker’s periodical updates confirm everyone’s survival), balefully glares at the image and cuts off the transmission with a vicious twist of his wrist.

Shepard predictably blows up the base.

He wonders if her reasons for detonation are purer than his Shepard’s—whether in jest or in seriousness, Shepard had confided in Thane that her decision to blow up the Base was fifty percent spite.

If there ever was a Shepard who thought the base was vital enough to leave it in Cerberus’s hands... Thane wonders if he would still consider her siha.

+

Thane remembers Shepard being imprisoned for all of six months prior to the Reaper War, when the Alliance finally decided that if they were going to fight the monsters, they were going to need one of their own. Thane knows she’ll be at ground zero and witness the Reapers tearing her homeworld apart first-hand.

He didn’t know where she’d be imprisoned, though. Nowhere sunny, he knew for sure, because her freckles had been fading back into her pale skin the first time he saw her at Huerta Memorial.

When Shepard receives the order to return to the Alliance to undergo trial, Thane presses his mouth tightly shut and keeps his silence amidst most of a team protesting Shepard’s decision to surrender. There is no arguing with military values, and if he hadn't been able to sway her from voluntary imprisonment the last life, he'll have no luck with an army child. 

Not to mention Vakarian supports it. Tactically, it's beneficial to keep one's allies content , and if there is ever a time when unity in the galaxy is needed, it is now.

Thane relocates from the mess to the Life Support room when Shepard's done announcing her plans to submit to Alliance demands. He's just about to review his omni-tool's messages when a sharp knock catches his attention, making him twist in his chair.

The orange tool blinks out as Shepard steps in with a pot of tea in her hand. "Thane," she begins uncertainly, then appears to mentally switch tactics. Shepard holds up the pot. "Time for tea?" 

"I may as well take advantage of supplies while I can," he answers. 

A couple minutes later, when she's sitting across from him and poured out two mugs of tea, Shepard procures a flask of whiskey from her many pockets. "I know, I know, not military regulations. But times being as they are... "

"At least Vakarian will be able to support you back to your quarters," Thane points out, holding out his mug for a healthy dose.

Times being as they are, there's too great of a chance Thane will be unable to share even this with her. 

+

He invites Shepard for a brief visit to see his home down at Kahje, to see Irikah and his children, and even though she and the Normandy have a deadline to meet (else face the consequences of being outlaws), Shepard says, "Why not?"

As a gesture of good-will, Thane invites the rest of the team as well despite all their homicidal, kleptomaniacal, and pyromaniacal tendencies. Most of them decline, because Kahje is horrifically humid, even inside the areas where the drell lived.

The visit is short and sweet -- Shepard befriends Irikah with a few jokes poking at Thane's stoic behavior, and Kolyat decides to idolize the commander.

This matter is not helped by the decision Shepard makes to give Thane's child a Widow.  _Her_ Widow. 

"Sorry," Shepard tells Thane unrepentantly. "I didn't want my baby in Alliance custody, unused and forgotten." After a beat, she hurriedly adds, "Not that I anticipate him using it. At all. Because of recoil damage."

The two of them are outside the front door, and Thane feels like digging the heel of his palm into his forehead. "Gods forbid," he mutters under his breath. Louder, Thane says, "I'm sure he’ll have it mounted on the wall for the rest of his days."

Something on her arm blinks red, beeps a high-pitched squeak. Casually, Shepard flicks it off and puts a friendly hand on his shoulder. "See you later, Thane."

He's frozen in place. "I'll try to get a message through. Or at least discern your location for Vakarian's sake."

She laughs. "Oh, I don't know. Jail for me is pretty much synonymous for safehouse, and those tend to be, well,  _hidden_." The hand is removed.

"I've never failed to find a target."

"I'll make it as easy as possible." 

Her leaving him behind hits a little harder than the first time; Thane tracks her departing figure through the crowd, the markets his house is located near to, and finally the alley that leads off to the docking bays. He does not watch the Normandy soar into the stormy skies.

+

Thane follows Shepard’s incarceration as closely as he can through the media, though even the media finds other things to speculate and focus on after her trial. Unable to willingly sit through six months without doing anything substantial, Thane checks up on Cerberus.

Kepral’s renders him more useless by the day—he’d rather set his affairs in order before the first Reapers strike Earth.

+

"Tell me what's happening, Thane," demands Irikah lowly. "This problem you're dealing with on your own, it's beyond Kepral's."

"There's no need for you to be involved," Thane tries. "Anything I say now has no substance. Not yet."

"'Yet'," she echoes. "What is going to happen that you know of?"

Thane winces at his verbal mistakes. "Nothing that I can support with evidence," he repeats. Taking her hand and pressing a kiss to it, Thane promises, "I will not disappear on you or our family without warning." He hesitates, weighing how much he can say. "There is a personal matter I'm trying to take care of," he confesses.

"Are you sure you have to go about it alone?"

"... No, but I want to."

+

As good as Thane is at killing, he cannot take down the might of Cerberus alone. No, his skills are better suited for hunting down individuals. Such as Kai Leng.

Good assassins aren’t meant to be identified; it only invited retribution, as Thane had found out. Good assassins, unless possessing a fine sense of theatrics, are never found for contracts. This is how the underworld works: post the contracts, and the assassins will come to you. Thane supposes Kai Leng’s continued survival is due to Cerberus’s interference, because the boy operates without discretion.

Not that Thane could argue his own flashy behavior is entirely behind him.

His participation (and sacrifice) in the Shadow Broker situation had gained him a direct connection to the new Shadow Broker, and so Thane calls the asari a few months into Shepard’s incarceration. The asari doesn’t look so much as harried as irritated, and her young drell operative is absent. “Shadow Broker,” he says mildly. “I’m glad to see you’ve settled into your role.”

“ _It’s been a long process_ ,” replies T’soni tartly. “ _How did you get access to this terminal_?”

“I have my ways. I need the location of Kai Leng, a Cerberus assassin.”

The Shadow Broker blinks. “I haven’t heard of him.”

Thane’s not entirely surprised, considering he had gathered whatever scant information he could in his own circles (because he couldn’t exactly provide his knowledge without the evidence or sources to support it). “It is a word-of-mouth reputation. Cerberus erases public records, I’m sure you know.”

+

Before venturing into Kai Leng’s supposed location, Thane hesitates. The cough lingers in his lungs, a persistent hindrance to his motions’ usual fluidity. His odds dwindle in the face of Kepral’s, but in an optimistic perspective, at least he can consider today the best condition he will ever be again.

He wistfully rings up Shepard’s personal omni-tool, lets it go into voice-mail for the seventieth time. There are no recordings left for her, this time. There’s no need. Recordings are a level of intimacy straying too close to infidelity for Thane to comfortably consider.

“ _This is Shepard. There’s a good reason why I can’t answer right now, including, possibly, the fact that I might be in a firefight for my life. So leave a message! I’ll get back to it as soon as possible._ ”

Tragically, the voice-mail box is empty of any messages.

Thane calls Irikah. “Wife,” he greets.

“ _Husband_ ,” she responds, warm. “ _We really should make our son get his own apartment or something_.”

He snorts. “I’m surprised you believe Kolyat can live alone with how you mother the boy.”

“… _He could room with his fellow acolytes_ ,” she suggests. “ _Did you need something_?”

He stays silent for too long.

“ _Thane._ ”

“Mm, it’s nothing, siha.”

“ _Come home_ ,” she entreats suddenly. Guilt makes him blink and cough, which he tries to choke back down – _his target’s here_. Irikah repeats herself, but now she sounds more wearied. “ _You didn’t even say goodbye, you know._ ”

A message from the Shadow Broker: **Your target’s on the move.**

Thane swipes it away. “I’ll be home soon.”

+

What does he remember of Kai Leng? A boy dressed in cybernetic enhancements, more robot than man. In love with theatrics, the split-second clash in a duel where one slash can end the fight. And Thane had fallen for it once, for the romance of the theoretical fifty-fifty chance when in reality, it had been weighted in the Cerberus assassin’s favor. Now the scales have been rebalanced.

Thane keeps to the shadows and sets his omni-tool on silent while he hunts for his prey.

+

One makes it out whole. The other makes it out perforated with bullet holes, particularly in the head.

+

“ _Krios_ ,” says Shepard effusively, and Thane blinks several times. A freckled visage dances in-between the flickering image: a sly grin, a toss of short fire-brand red hair, the inviting glitter of green eyes, the overwhelmingly nervous bursts of laugh—

“Commander,” he returns, polite and moderated warmth. Talking to a newly-freed Shepard hologram is a new experience for him, one granted by the Shadow Broker’s drell agent who’d invaded his home several weeks earlier to install a ‘proper communications service’. The drell had charmed Kolyat into allowing him access into their father’s study, a disgruntling fact made aware to Thane _after_ the drell had departed. “How is freedom?”

Her smile falters, but the hologram may simply be lagging. “ _Busy. Hear about the Reapers_?”

“I have heard something about that,” he dryly answers. “I’ve been employed as the Illuminated Primacy’s chief information specialist concerning them.”

Shepard visibly cheers. “ _Oh, good, you’re in the Primacy. That’s good. Good news, I mean._ ”

Thane stares at his Commander for elaboration.

“ _So, corruption_ ,” she leads hintingly.

He waits.

“ _Okay, this Spectre asked me to track this source of corruption, and I may have tracked it to your planet. I’m wondering if you could give me any insight on who to specifically aim for, because I think he’s sabotaging or going to sabotage Kahje_ – ”

“Do you have a time-frame?”

“ _Soon._ ”

Later, Shepard relays to him her tirade toward the corrupt hanar diplomat and openly wonders if the insult ‘jellyfish’ is ever actually registered amongst the hanar. With a straight face, Thane gives her a wildly fabricated story on the vast insult and how she could’ve started another war calling the hanar ‘big stupid jellyfish’.

Irikah helps him the deception, adding solemn nods and soft reproach whenever he breaks into violent coughing spasms.

After the call is abruptly cancelled (he heard something about the Normandy heading to save Aralakh Company), the two of them laugh for a long time.

+

He knows the feeling of death all too well at this point, how it rattles his chest and sends pangs of pain with every tortured breath he fights to take. But when he messages Shepard, a paragraph of black humor and well-wishes, he does not expect her to force Joker to fly the Normandy to Kahje and visit Thane.

“You’re not dead!” she accuses him. He’s opened the door to her terrified face, bemusement in his. Behind him, Thane can feel Irikah’s curious gaze at the appearance of _the_ Commander Shepard on her doorstep yet again.

“No,” he replies, nonplussed. “I’m _about_ to, which is an entirely different matter.” Thane tilts his head and looks at the two teammates Shepard usually drags along in her excursions; Vakarian is at a market stall, and there is a broad-shouldered human trying to haggle down a price with an amused female drell.

Kolyat overhears the commotion at the door, and he waves hello at the Commander. The Commander waves hello back before turning all her considerable attention at him.

“Explain the really unneeded message,” she demands. “And the thing about Mordin!”

“Shepard—this isn’t really a conversation you’d want to have on a doorstep.” She isn’t supposed to be _here_ at all, Thane wants to say. She’s supposed to be fighting the good fight, whereas Thane had his last bout months ago with a foolish upstart named Kai Leng.

Irikah’s hand touches his shoulder, and he flinches. “You can talk in the house,” she says firmly, pulling him away from the door so Shepard can step inside.

“Thanks, Irikah,” sighs Shepard, and she turns to signal something at her team before joining them in the Krios household. “Sorry, they’ll probably be arrested by Kahje’s police force or something, but at least they won’t interrupt the very needed conversation we’re about to have.”

Feebly, Thane attempts to remove himself from the impending talk. “I should go.”

“No, stay,” orders his Commander. “Explain.”

Thane crosses his arms and stares at the floor, unable to meet Shepard’s eyes. The instant Irikah ushers their son away from the room, he sighs. “It’s nothing more than the maudlin efforts of a dying man, Commander. Take it as you will.”

“Is it really?” The disbelief is crystal clear and just as sharp.

“Yes.”

Quietly, Shepard says, “Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t mean anything by hinting Mordin’s death.” And Thane can’t. She draws in a sharp breath. “I’ve got two questions, Krios, and you’d best answer them as truthfully as possible. _How_ and _why_?”

“I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” he confesses. Thane doesn’t know the answers to any of Shepard’s questions—gods, Thane was the _worst_ candidate to be dropped off in a parallel universe. What good was he considering he’d died early on in the War? And not even a casualty of a battle but of a _disease_. “I’m sorry, Shepard.”

The two of them stand there, silent for a few moments. “Okay,” she finally says. “Okay. We’ll… deal with it when it comes.”

He lifts his head to grant her a ghost of a smile. “You’ll deal with it,” he gently corrects her. “I know when I’ll die.”

“You’re an awful astrologer.”

“I never claimed to be a fortuneteller.”

Shepard laughs a not-nice laugh. “No, I guess not. Goodbye, Thane.”

“Commander.” Technically, he should stand to attention, hand at his forehead and shoulders straight and all the military protocol. Instead, Thane twists his hand at his sternum and bows, a gesture of fealty.

+

There are people he should’ve tried to save, the good doctor among them, but Thane has never claimed to be a savior. He is selfish with his generosity, only repentant when he is without a redeeming cause. Destined to die early – most drell are considering where they live – he’s done well with this life. Two sihas will outlive him, his previous death avenged (hilariously) by himself, his son safe and out of his mercenary lifestyle.

What more can he possibly ask for?

**Author's Note:**

> So the point of the bad ending (I'm assuming it's bad, because my beta reader/little sister told me it was a crap ending) is that Thane is ultimately fated to die, it's just that so much of his life had gone to waste, now he had an opportunity to right his wrongs. 
> 
> Still working on... everything else, to be honest! Happy Holidays!


End file.
